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Topic: Hand Kneading Problem (Read 4895 times)

Hi all- I've been experimenting with NYC style pizzas at home for a few months now- making slow but sure progress. At the moment I'm doing all my kneading by hand (have to wait till next xmas before santa brings me a Kitchen Aid) but I keep coming across the same problem- no matter what hydration I aim for, I find myself having to add a considerable amount of flour to the dough during kneading so as to stop it from from turning to a sticky mess on the bench. As a result, the hydration is distorted and I am not getting the crust I am aiming for. For example, I had a go at one of the early Pizza Raquel dough formulations yesterday:

1 - Stir water and salt with spoon/whisk until dissolved in stand mixer bowl. 2 - Add approximately half the flour first, then the yeast. Fit stand mixer with hook attachment. 3 - Mix 30 seconds on stir to incorporate yeast. 4 - Add preferment. 5 - Mix 1 minute on stir to incorporate preferment. 6 - 20 minute autolyse. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP (or you will die painfully).7 - Mix on stir speed for 5 minutes, adding in remaining flour gradually over the 5 minute mix.8 - Mix on 2/3 for 5 minutes. 9 - Check dough temperature with digital thermometer; it should be 80 degrees at the hook. 10 15 minute autolyse. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP (or you will die really painfully and slowly).11 Remove dough from bowl and hand knead for 2 minutes on lightly floured prep area. 12 Cut into 2 equal pieces, form into balls, place dough into bowls, cover with shower caps. 13 Place dough in the refrigerator. Ferment for 24+ hours. 14 On the following day(s), remove dough from refrigerator and bring to room temperature. Note: Do not punch down, reform balls, or do anything to the dough other than let it warm to room temperature."

I followed this mixing procedure, except of course I was kneading by hand, and I found myself having to add at least 1/2 cup of extra flour during kneading so that I could actually handle the dough. Naturally,this threw the final hydration right out

Is buying a stand mixer the only way to over come this problem?? Would the addition of vital wheat gluten, since hi gluten flour is unavailable here, make any difference?

I believe it's not your kneading technique - I knead all my doughs by hand, for a total of 30 mins, including rest periods for the dough of 5 - 10 mins, depending on much I made. It's how much rest you give the dough in between kneading intervals.

Try resting the dough every 10 mins, covering it with a damp kitchen towel for 5 mins and then knead again.

Just a thought- does anyone here use a food processor with the blade attachment to knead doughs?? I have one but have never tried it in this way......might be a way around my problem

Tom,

As noted at this thread, http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,2189.msg19289.html#msg19289, it is possible to use a food processor to make pizza dough. However, it is problematic to use a food processor when making a dough that has more water than flour at the beginning, as required by steps 1 and 2 of the recipe you used. In my food processor, adding a small amount of flour to a lot of water in the processor bowl will gum up the works. For steps 1 and 2, and up to and including step 7, I would do everything in a large bowl using a sturdy spoon. For step 8, I would empty the contents of the bowl onto your work surface and use a bench knife (aka dough scraper), or two of them if you have a spare one, to work the remaining flour into the dough. To do this, I would periodically dust the bench knife/knives with flour and sprinkle the dough with small amounts of flour and use the bench knife/knives to turn the dough into itself to incorporate the flour. I would do this until the dough reaches the stage where it is dry enough for you to be able to work with it with your hands. You might lightly flour your hands so that they don't stick to the dough. Hopefully, from this point forward you should be able to knead the dough by hand without all of the wetness or excessive stickiness and without having to add a lot of bench flour.

You might also want to consider lowering the hydration of your dough. It is hard to say what your current overall hydration is without knowing the hydration of your preferment, but it is possible that the combination of the formula water and the water in your preferment is too high for the type of flour you are using. The KASL called for in the recipe has a rated absorption of around 63%. By contrast, a typical U.S. all-purpose flour had a rated absorption of around 60%. If you know the amount of water in the quantity of preferment you are using, you should be able to calculate the amount of formula water needed to get the combination of water from both sources to around 60%. You could alternatively add some vital wheat gluten, which should help absorb some of the excess water, but usually you will want to calculate how much vital wheat gluten to add based on the protein content of the all-purpose flour you are using and the brand of the vital wheat gluten you plan to use (it is usually around 65-75%), with emphasis on the protein content of that particular brand. If you can tell me the protein content of your all-purpose flour and the protein content of the brand of vital wheat gluten you plan to use, I think I can help you with the calculation. Making a jump protein-wise from all-purpose flour to high-gluten flour is a big jump, and you may not see the very best results from the vital wheat gluten supplementation, but I think it may be worth a try under the circumstances.

I had a brand new food processor with dough blade the processor is junk now because of about five batches. If you value you processor don't use it for pizza dough. Buy a mixer

Scot,

Out of curiosity, what brand and size food processor do you have and what caused you to abandon it? Did you try to make dough batches that were too big for your processor? For small batches of dough that are too little for a stand mixer, or for low-hydration doughs for cracker style crusts, the food processor is ideal. It's just not particularly effective for liquid-y doughs like tommygun is trying to make.

tommygun,I've been hand kneading my dough for 10 years and have come up with atechnique that works quite well without all that sticky mess with doughsticking to your hands and board.

I use a large glass bowl and add to it, 1/2 the flour, and all the dry ingrediantsand I mix it well using a large hand whisk. Then I add all the liquid ingrediantsand mix well using the hand whisk until it's smooth and silky.

Next, I switch from hand whisk to a large hand spatual w/4 inch blade.I begin adding the reamining flour 1/2 cup at a time and use the spatulato kind of scrape the bowl and fold in the flour. I'm pressing hard with thespatula and kind of kneading as I mix in the remaining flour. I stop addingflour when the dough is dry enough to be handled and kneaded by hand.At this point, I also find that the spatula is clean and dry. Absolutelyno mess on my hands either.

I place the dough on a well floured wood surface and knead by handwith a folding motion and keep dusting the top surface of the doughand the wood surface to keep it from sticking to my hands and board.

You can always knead it "dry" with almost all the water, and then sprinkle on the rest of the water into the container you use to ferment. Since you have a 24 hour ferment, it will soak in slowly as it ferments.

You could alternatively add some vital wheat gluten, which should help absorb some of the excess water, but usually you will want to calculate how much vital wheat gluten to add based on the protein content of the all-purpose flour you are using and the brand of the vital wheat gluten you plan to use (it is usually around 65-75%), with emphasis on the protein content of that particular brand. If you can tell me the protein content of your all-purpose flour and the protein content of the brand of vital wheat gluten you plan to use, I think I can help you with the calculation. Making a jump protein-wise from all-purpose flour to high-gluten flour is a big jump, and you may not see the very best results from the vital wheat gluten supplementation, but I think it may be worth a try under the circumstances.

Peter

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...OK, i got my hands on some vital wheat gluten and am keen to give the Raquel another try. The Gluten Flour is 75% protein and the all purpose flour i'm using is 11.5%.....petezza or anyone else- could you point me in the direction of a calculator/ tool that will give guidance as to the amount of Gluten Flour i'll need to use to replicate a 14% hi gluten flour?? I won't be using a preferment this time and will be aiming to make 4 x 14" pizzas....any help with calculating baker's percents for this endeavour would be appreciated!

I should be able to help you with both matters. However, you may want to doublecheck the amount of IDY to use if you do not plan to use a preferment. In an earlier iteration of the Raquel dough formulation, the preferment was optional; in the iteration you referenced in your opening post, the preferment appears to be obligatory. If you use just a pinch of IDY (0.0625%) and no preferment and plan on cold fermenting the dough, I am not sure that a pinch of IDY will produce enough leavening power. Maybe pftaylor can clarify the matter. In the meantime, I will look to see if there was an IDY-only version of the Raquel formulation posted somewhere.

FYI, the calculator for determining how much vital wheat gluten to use in your flour blend is on the right-hand side of this page: http://foodsim.toastguard.com/.

As noted in the above table, I used a bowl residue compensation of 2.5% to compensate for minor dough losses during the preparation of the dough. You should also note that the total dough batch weight is a bit less than what is given in the Raquel dough formulation that you recited. That is because the preferment was removed from that formulation. However, the difference in weight is small and unlikely to be noticed in the two dough balls. If you feel that you need the identical dough weight of the Raquel dough formulation you referenced, you can enter the dough batch weight of 27.78493 oz. into the Lehmann dough calculating tool, along with the bakerís percents given in the above table. You may then want to add a bowl residue compensation figure.

In terms of the amount of vital wheat gluten (at 75% protein) that should be used to raise the protein content of the all-purpose flour you will be using, from 11.5% to 14%, the 16.4 oz. of flour recited in the above table converts to 15.7543 oz. of flour and 0.6457 oz. of vital wheat gluten. To convert the vital wheat gluten quantity to teaspoon measures, you will have to divide 0.6457 by the weight of one teaspoon of your brand of vital wheat gluten. In the U.S., a teaspoon of a comparable vital wheat gluten (Bobís Red Mill brand) weighs 2.3 g., or 0.0811287 oz. On that basis, the 0.6457 oz. is equal to about 8 level teaspoons. You may want to check your brand to get the correct values that apply in your case. If you decide to increase the dough batch size as mentioned above, you will have to use member Novemberís tool at http://foodsim.toastguard.com/ to recalculate the amount of vital wheat gluten to use.

I use 70% water and do not have a problem. It sounds you like you need to use a bencher to fold you dough then flour your hands to knead. Try kneading like in an envelope shape. So ..four folds and pinch the center. Repeat 4 times every 30min.